Pat has left the world at last, at ninety seven, in England and far from her old home in Inyanga. I can't help feeling that a great spirit has deserted those lovely Eastern Highlands of Zimbabwe and wondering if her legacy, that spirit, her inventions, her great productions have all gone with her - like so much else that was good about the past. An artistic, strong-willed English gentlewoman, she made Inyanga and its people the centre of her creative life decades ago. She drew upon the natural and human resources, developing and promoting village industry. She sought out and encouraged the pefection of beautiful crafts, useful ones too. She built up the pride of an industrious people. She did what only a few white women of her days in Inyanga could do.
Writing her obituary yesterday set me thinking again about Inyanga (Nyanga).
Remembering.
Only a few hours'drive from Salisbury (Harare) on the Umtali (Mutare) road.
You passed through Marandellas (Marondera)with Peterhouse school, a hotel and lots of untidy little shops on your right. Dombotombo township out of sight across the empty ground was over on your left. You had to watch out for township people crossing in front of you on foot or wobbling on bicycles or creating a traffic hazzard with their little donkey drawn scotch carts. Way back in time, as you journeyed on, there was a little roadside cafe called the Crow's Nest; a cutout metal crow silhouette was a sure sign that holiday treats: tea and freshly baked cream scones were waiting on a yellow check cloth in the tiny, spotless shop. Or out in the shady garden. When this disappeared with its farmer-owners there was only a broken down bus, a kind of deserted scrapyard.
But then there was Malwattee, a better stop off for the return journey, nearer Harare. Farmers wives made this a lovely place. You parked under tall gum trees, sat down at wire tables and basked in the afternoon sunshine. White coated waiters or chocolate brown girls in black uniforms and clean white pinnies brought your refreshments or you could go inside the guesthouse and choose your decorated cakes glistening beneath the glass counter with the bright light above it. You watched the peacocks and the bantam chickens pecking about the lawns around you or among shady trees on the far side of the circle of chairs and tables. There was a rose garden. You could tour the little shops, inside the guest house or in the crazy, domed little pink place someone invented to save the cost of roofing. It was stocked with local crafts, plenty of stuff you didn't want if you were not a tourist. Outward again and, Eastward, Halfway house came later, after Zimbabwe's Independence. You passed through the cavernous shop overflowing with farm produce and home baked cookies and sweets. It was a great hit, especially over weekends, crowded with tourists guzzling cokes and pies in the grassy courtyard, surrounded by litte tourist outlets on cool verandahs. There were clay pots, hand knitted jumpers, plants, beadwork, artefacts, some nice and some nasty. With its tall, gabled roof visible for miles, it soon grew to almost industrial proportions, the dusty car park overcrowded. It even provided a little zoo with a couple of fenced lions guarding their bloody rib cage lunch. You watched the browsing zebra or hand fed the small antelope with its damaged hind leg.
After the long, straight road has passed through a quiet wattle plantation, you could fill your fuel tank in Rusape, take a left turn out of the town and bowl down the narrow tarred strip taking you on to Juliasdale. The mountains begin to rise up and the little forests of Umbrella acacia trees near the Punchbowl Inn give way to huge forests of pine trees. Somebody remarks that these foreign trees are becoming quite a nuisance if they are not severely cut back for timber. Giant granite rocks next; they have recognizable contours. They are are all around you as you wind through low kopjes and steep hills, and there is your favourite, high above your holiday cottage, over there on the far horizon. It is a rock formation we know: The Crusader. He is granite man stretched out on his back across the top of the rocky mountain, his shield on his chest and his toes turned towards cloudless blue skies. This is summer weather. Sometimes, especially in the early mornings, the misty clouds descend to moisten the hardy natural protea bushes on the ground and promote the growth of a thousand wild flowers ... who could forget those fragrant herby scents?
Where are we staying? Sometimes at the chalets in the Rhodes National Park where you can trout fish in the Mare dam. Don't forget to visit the museum sparsely occupied with photographs and artefacts to remind you of Rhodesia's founder,Cecil John Rhodes. He bequeathed this park to the nation. Be careful of tiny ticks as you walk through the long grass at Urdu dam. The chalets cost only ten dollars a night. They have bare furniture and simple beds with candlewick covers and the cookers are sometimes pretty antiquated. The kids love the kind of seaside atmosphere at the Inyangombe waterfall which tumbles over shallow rocks not far from the road bridge. There is a little beach of warm sand where buckets and spades come out and some of you venture into the icy cold water. Higher up on the mountain there is an expensive tea at the five star Troutbeck hotel. Conemara, higher still, is where you stay at your friend's sloping mountainside smallholding of rasberrie and trout ponds. Here you can gaze across the green valley to the rivers and lakes of distant Mozambique. World's View is even higher up the mountain than Pat Pearce's eagle's eyrie.
The views are still there and perhaps for a time, the emptying hotels. but all the rest of this is not only a dream of the past; it is a scene that is past. The people who sustained so much of it are going, or like Pat, have all gone now.
I once drove up there with a young, black friend who had grown up in Inyanga. We headed towards Inyangani, the mysterious mountain where walkers have disappeared. One of my friends lost her two daughters up there, like the girls in the spooky Australian film `Picnic at Hanging Rock'. They vanished on a walk one Sunday afternoon. My passager warned me `Never point your finger at that Inyangani, it is dangerous. My mother told me that there are powerful spirits up there. If you point, they will harm you'.
Yes, Inyanga is a place full of spirits, not all bad.
Copyright © 2004 Diana Mitchell
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